And then there are photos like this one...
...that should have your gaydar ringing five alarms, unless you're an idiot.
Posted on 07/03/2012 5:31:02 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
I wondered about this on the afternoon of the decision. It stands to reason: If, as most everyone believes, Roberts initially assigned the majority opinion to himself and then ended up flipping at the eleventh hour, the four conservative dissenters would have had to scramble to come up with an opinion of their own while handling the rest of their caseload. (Roberts authored no other opinions over the final two months of the term so he and his clerks could conceivably have drafted something new from scratch late in the process.) The easiest way to do that would be to salvage Roberts' orphaned majority opinion --- or, at least, the bits he wasn't keeping for himself --- and re-work as necessary. Maybe they took the sections he discarded on the tax power and severability, tacked on their own section rejecting the Commerce Clause argument, and called that a dissent. Using Roberts' own words against him would have been a pointed rebuke to him for flipping, even if the Court and its clerks are the only ones with enough background on this process to fully appreciate it.
My source insists that “most of the material in the first three quarters of the joint dissent was drafted in Chief Justice Roberts’ chambers in April and May.” Only the last portion of what eventually became the joint dissent was drafted without any participation by the chief justice.
This source insists that the claim [in Jan Crawford's CBS story] that the joint dissent was drafted from scratch in June is flatly untrue. Furthermore, the source characterizes claims by Crawford’s sources that “the fact that the joint dissent doesn’t mention [sic] Roberts’ majority … was a signal the conservatives no longer wished to engage in debate with him” as “pure propagandistic spin,” meant to explain away the awkward fact that while the first 46 pages of the joint dissent never even mention Roberts’ opinion for the court (this is surely the first time in the court’s history that a dissent has gone on for 13,000 words before getting around to mentioning that it is, in fact, dissenting), the last 19 pages do so repeatedly.
That’s lefty law prof Paul Campos writing for lefty web zine Salon. Did a mischievous liberal clerk leak to them in order to embarrass the conservative dissenters? Could be, except that … this is more embarrassing to Roberts than to Scalia and company. The idea that his words are on both sides of the Court’s decision makes the outcome seem that much more bizarre and his supposedly principled change of heart seem that much more dubious. He’s talking, almost literally, out of both sides of his mouth. It’s a shot at his credibility and the Court’s institutional legitimacy, which was supposedly the basis for his decision, more than it is a shot at the conservative dissenters. Why would a liberal clerk want to sandbag him for siding with them on the biggest case they’ll ever rule on?
Then again, if this is true, why wouldn’t the (presumably conservative) Court sources who leaked to Jan Crawford have simply said so? Obviously, they didn’t borrow his discarded opinion because they’re lazy. They borrowed it because they were pressed for time and/or because they wanted to make a point — or, just maybe, because they held out hope to the bitter end that he’d switch back and join them in striking down the law. By keeping the dissent intact as a potential majority opinion rather than larding it up with language lashing out at Roberts, the four conservatives made it as easy as possible for him to reconsider and climb back aboard right down to the wire. To my mind, that’s the best explanation for the tone of the opinion, the inclusion of the otherwise gratuitous severability section, and the lack of any references to Roberts’s opinion. They weren’t working on a dissent, they were working on a shadow majority, ready to go right out of the box in case Roberts came back into the fold. (Crawford notes that Kennedy was lobbying Roberts up to the last minute, in fact.) That doesn’t settle the issue of who authored most of the eventual dissent — maybe it was mostly Roberts’s draft or maybe it really was co-drafted by Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, and Alito with an eye to winning Roberts back over — but it settles most everything else.
Here’s Krauthammer accusing Roberts of letting the left intimidate him. Exit question via TNR: Were Thomas and Kennedy the CBS leakers?
Well, they became a bunch of freaking filthy hippies in the 60s, took over the government, destroyed education, and transformed the media into a communist propaganda machine, and then had kids.
You’re absolutely correct. One can trace the decline of our country back to the 60s and to my generation of Americans. When we returned from Vietnam, we found that Americans had become a people with whom we had little in common and this decline has continued until today.
Starting in the 60s, this downward spiral of the American people explains how Barack Hussein Obama, a man with no record of personal accomplishment, no leadership experience, and a man with strong connections to terrorists, criminals, perverts, racists, and anti-American Communists pulled it off and was elected President of these United States.
Some of us believe Karma has now bestowed the consequences of dishonorable behavior on the American people. Why do we believe this? In answer to my question, let me remind you of this statement and where these words took the American people:
“Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.”
John Fitzgerald Kennedy Inaugural address, Friday, January 20, 1961
With these words ringing in our ears, my generation went to Vietnam and promised the Vietnamese people we would stand shoulder to shoulder with them until their freedom was secure and the enemies of liberty were defeated. But, it is to America’s eternal shame and disgrace that the American people soon grew tired of this noble undertaking and betrayed the very people who had believed and trusted us.
Then, as now, the American people elected Democrats to our Congress who had rather see American soldiers killed and our country defeated than allow a Republican president to receive credit for defeating our enemies. This Democrat led Congress (the infamous 93rd) cut off funding for the Vietnam War and forced the withdrawal of American combat troops in 1973, but we departed with the hollow promise that we would return if the Republic of South Vietnam was invaded by communist North Vietnam. As everyone must remember, this, again, was a lie.
The tactic we had taught the South Vietnamese was to, when invaded by the North, fall back to a defendable position, stall the communist advance, force the communists to mass their forces before South Vietnam’s defenses, and this would allow time for American forces and air power to return to assist them as we had promised. South Vietnam did just that; for twelve days, outnumbered ten to one, the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) held and stalled the communist’s advance outside Saigon near a little town called Xuan Loc.
Outside Xuan Loc during April 1975, in an effort as gallant as that of the Spartans at Thermopylae, the ARVN 18th Infantry Division held two North Vietnamese Army Corps at bay for twelve days. Every infantryman in the ARVN 18th Infantry Division died in that stand. None ran away and none survived. They died to a man fighting overwhelming odds and believing to the end we Americans would return as promised.
Just before the last ARVN soldier of the 18th Infantry Division died, he might have rolled over on his back and looked to the sky hoping to see the contrails of American B-52 bombers and he saw nothing. This last ARVN soldier then knew that he, along with all the Vietnamese people, had been betrayed. With his dying breath, this soldier must have then turned his gaze heavenly and beseeched God to Damn America.
Yes, there is such a thing as Karma where dreadful consequences are meted out in recompense for dishonorable behavior. The American people’s just rewards for abandoning a valiant ally during their time of need could be that the chickens came home to roost on the American people with an Obama Presidency; a Nancy Pelosi Congress; a Harry Reid Senate; now a John Roberts Supreme Court, and it couldn’t have happened to a more deserving people.
The election of 2008 was about more than just Obama, his arrogance, his empty resume, and his traitorous comrades. Just as Karma provides consequences for dishonorable behavior, there are also adverse consequences for irresponsible behavior. As a people deserve the government they vote into office, they also deserve the consequences resulting from that government’s actions or inaction. The consequences of a government not securing a country’s borders is that a people will lose their country as we are now losing ours to an invasion of illegal immigrants. The consequences of not securing a country’s electoral processes to prevent voter fraud is the country will lose its Democracy to a Thugocracy as we have lost ours to a Chicago-mob run Coup d’état.
But the final insult to our Democracy is with the election of Barack Hussein Obama, an avowed Marxist Communist, a significant chapter in American History has finally closed. Our sixty-odd year long Cold War with Communism is over and the Communists have won the war.
These words precede those of President Kennedy, so no one can say we didn’t see this coming:
“We cannot expect the Americans to jump from Capitalism to Communism, but we can assist their elected leaders in giving Americans small doses of Socialism until they suddenly awake to find they have Communism.”
Nikita Khrushchev, 1959
As we Americans continue to live out the old Chinese curse, “May you live in interesting times.”
by
Donald J. Taylor
A Vietnam Veteran
And then there are photos like this one...
...that should have your gaydar ringing five alarms, unless you're an idiot.
All the photos published so far are of him alone.
You obviously don't have a single solitary clue as to what epilepsy is and isn't.
You make us all look like fools with your shouting out of your ignorance. Not a dangerous as Robert's vileness, but bad enough.
He also got into the extensive writing syndrome.
I've met others like him over the years.
Now, where do you get your experience from?
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